One Solera, 2 Beers

Brewing a refill for
the LHBG solera.

Over the past 5 years I've maintained a series of solera's - two at home which, sadly, after 3 years of successful operation died to a bit of neglect on my part. The third belongs to my brew club, for whom I manage the solera. Starting this winter I am planning on a series of posts and videos about solera brewing, but as a bit of a prequel, I thought I'd share a brief post on by brew clubs solera (LHGB Solera) and two beers I prepared from the first pull out of it.

Firstly, for those of you who don't know, a solera is a method of continually producing sour beer. For a sour beer solera, a fermenter (often a large barrel) is filled with beer and allowed to ferment and age. At a set interval (usually between 6 months and 1 year) a portion of the solera is removed and bottled, and the solera topped off with fresh beer. Over time the effective age of the beer in the solera will approach a average age which will then be retained for the remainder of the solera's lifespan. For example, for the LHBG Solera, we remove half the beer every nine months, leading to a beer which will eventually converge on an effective age of 1.5 years. How effective ages are calculated, managing a solera, and other topics, will be the subject of some future posts.

The LHBG solera has been designed to be a middle-of-the-road sour beer; modest funk and restrained sourness. The beer is ~5% ABV, 50:50 mix of pilsner and wheat malt, and 10IBUs. This recipe was selected for a few reasons - the beer is aging in a white wine barrel, and this lighter tasting beer should allow for that character to shine through. Secondly, it allows members of the brew club a lot of flexibility in turning their share into something unique, through adding fruit, spices, or blending with other beers.

Refiling the LHGB solera.

The first time the solera was filled we brewed the beer on the personal brewing equipment of 10 volunteers, which was then pooled into the solera. The logistics of this wasn't trivial, leading our club to decide to build a large brew-rig to fill barrels (we have two at this time). Construction took a lot longer than expected (18 months), which was a happy mistake as it gave the beer a good bit of age on it, and got us to a point where we would have a solera with a stable effective age of 1.5 years. The first beer from the solera was a little more acidic than planned, and lacked brett character, so we tweaked the refill recipe to adjust. IBU's were increased to suppress sourness, performed a ferulic acid rest and fermented with a Belgian yeast to increase brett character, and finally, we added another sour culture to the mix to try and bring out a bit more complexity in the beer. These adjustments highlight the power of a solera - you can tweak a sour beer as it ages, to get a desired and consistent product.

Pellicle on the LHBG solera, as viewed during the refill.

A little over a month ago we "withdrew" the first beer from the LHGB solera, and shared the beer among interested club members. I am moving in the very near future, and has such had to do something quick with my share, as moving some carboys of sour beer are not really an option. Half of my share I bottled straight-up. The second half I put on some hibiscus for a week, whose fruit character should complement the sour beer nicely. The beer was bottled using sugar and champagne yeast, and left to carbonate for the past 6 weeks.

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Straight Sour

Appearance: The unmodified (straight) sour beer pours with a thin and short-lived head. Body is golden in colour with a slight haze and a nice effervescence.

Aroma: Aroma is lactic with a notable white-wine note. Missing from the aroma is any hint of funk - no mustiness, leather or barnyard to be found.

Flavour: Up-front is a strong lactic tartness and a modest white wine character. Behind this is a bit of a bready malt character and a touch of hop bitterness. The flavours are a little unbalanced - the acidity is too high given the lighter nature of the beer, and this acts to hide both the wine and malt character. There is no brett funk at all in the flavour. There is also a slight off-flavour on the after taste; a touch of diacetyl which leaves a bit of butteriness on the aftertaste.

Mouthfeel: Acidic, crisp and dry. Aftertaste is a lingering acidity in the back of the throat, and a bit of a buttery sweetness.

Overall: Not bad for the first pull from a solera, as there has been no chances to correct for flaws yet, but still in need of improvement. Good news is that all the flaws are correctable, and on the re-fill we modified the recipe to give more brett character (which should also clean up the diacetyl) and to suppress the lacto to make it less acidic. I'm stuck with my share as-is, but if I had the time I'd blend this beer with a saison to cut the acidity, add some funk, while still allowing the white wine character to shine though.

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Hibiscus Version

The choice to add hibiscus was based on a few factors. The first was speed - hibiscus was something I could add and bottle on time for our big move. The second was balance - hibiscus adds a sensation of sweetness (although not actual sugars) which can help to counteract the acidity of the beer. Finally, its floral/fruity flavour should complement the white wine character of the beer nicely.

Appearance: Strawberry-red, with a touch of haze. Unlike the straight solera beer, this one has some additional head retention, with a modest white head that lasts for a couple of minutes.

Aroma: Remarkable similar to the unmodified version; acidic with a touch of white wine. The aroma is perhaps a touch more fruity than the unmodified version, but only slightly so.

Flavour: This is where the big difference is. While still acidic, there is enough "sweetness" from the hibiscus to counter-act it somewhat. It is still a very sour beer, but is less harsh and better balanced than the unmodified version. This helps to bring out the white wine character, with the hibiscus acting to accentuate the berry character of the wine rather than acting as its own flavour. And while I know this is purely perceptive, I cannot detect the diacetyl note that is present in the unmodified version.

Mouthfeel: Dry, crisp and acidic. Despite the less acidic taste on the tongue, the beer still gives a lingering acidic burn in the throat. Aftertaste is an acidic berry character.

Overall: The hibiscus makes this a more balanced beer than the unmodified version, but as with the unmodified form, this one too has some flaws that will be corrected by adjustments to the solera's recipe.

She's Just That Pretty

I've already blogged about my "Sour Grapes" berliner from late 2016, but she's a pretty beer and worthy of another photo!

The Power of Staged Fermentation - Sour Grapes

Progression of the beer from: Day of grape addition (left) to 4 months later in the glass (right)

I am a bit of an experimentalist at heart, and one area in which I do a lot of "experimental" brews is using the staged addition of pure cultures of wild or commercial yeasts & bugs, pitched at varying times, to produce unique sour beers that cannot be produced through conventional brewing techniques. I've made beers with similar complexity to classical sour beers using staged-addition of bugs, but that's not what this post is about. Rather, this post is about using these methods to make good beer from difficult ingredients. In this case, wild grapes.

Wild grapes are pretty common place across North America, and they come in two "flavours" - European wine grapes that have escaped the vineyard and native species of grapes. Wild European grapes are pretty similar to the grapes you buy in the grocery store, and can be used as would any other wine grape in sour beer brewing. Truly wild grapes are another beast. In fact, my first attempt to brew with these turned a rather lacklustre 2-year old golden sour into an unpalatable mess. Thankfully I only added grapes to one gallon of that beer, and rescued the rest with a more classical cherry addition! There have been attempts since, and none (until now) were worth writing about.

There are nearly 70 species of wild grapes native to North America, so I'm not sure how true the following statements will be for brewers in other regions of N. America (or elsewhere), but for people in Ontario and the north-eastern US, this should be relatively accurate. The three species of wild grape native to my area (Vitis riparia, V. aestivalis and V. labrusca) are quite different from their European cousins. These grapes are much more intense than their European cousins; while the juice of European varieties are generally used to make wine undiluted, our local wild grapes need to have their juice diluted between 1:2 and 1:5 to produce a wine with a tolerable taste. The grapes themselves are quite small (0.5 cm diameter or smaller), have a very thick and tannic skin, have a much higher malic acid content, and have a much larger seed portion (relative to the amount of fruit) compared to their European cousins. And it is those characteristics that make them hard to incorporate into sour beer - essentially, enough grapes to give a nice grape flavour also imparts a lot of tannins, malic acid and grape-seed character.

Tannins are astringent and drying, and while nice in small amounts, they can quickly become overwhelming and unpleasant. Indeed, tannins are often made by plants for the purpose of deterring animals from eating the plant - the term "tannin" comes from their ability to tan leather, so you can imagine how excess amounts make your mouth feel. Malic acid is also quite harsh - almost as harsh as acetic acid - and like tannins can be pleasant in small amounts but becomes harsh and overwhelming quite easily. The seeds of grapes are also problematic - they contain some earthy and woody flavours that are pleasant, but the high seed content of wild grapes means these characters can be somewhat strong, and in my experience, clash with brett phenolics.

My attempts at using these grapes in conventional sours failed because of these characteristics - the malic acid would make an already acidic beer far too acidic and harsh, the seed character would amp up the funk, which in turn clashed with the high levels of tannins. Even pressing the grapes for juice doesn't solve these issues (aside from the grape seed flavour) to any meaningful extent. But where traditional sour brewing methods failed, "experimental" methods succeeded.

More Below the Fold

One brew day - several sour(ish) beers

Random "helper" captured while preparing the fruit for this beer

This is a big post, providing information on three very different beers, all brewed from a single wort a little over a month ago. This has been (and continues to be) a pretty exciting series of beers - from a single wort I made a dry hopped berliner weiss, an experimental beer with the yeast Lachancea thermotolerans, and a fruited/bretted beer using wild grapes and the flora of those grapes!


At the heart of these three very different beers is an incredibly simple wort - a 44L (11.6 US gallon) batch of a no-boil Beliner Weisse, based loosely on the Milk the Funk Berliner Weisse recipe. Rather than post my recipe, I'd direct you to the previous link. The only modifications I made were in my procedures:

1. I mashed at 62.8C for 75 minutes, to get a drier final beer than the MTF standard recipe.
2. The wort was not boiled; instead I heated it to ~90C, and let it sit at this temperature for 10 minutes prior to cooling to 45C for pitching of the Lactobacillus.
3. No hops were used in the mash or boil.

Once the wort was prepared 4L was pulled off for the experimental Lachancea thermotolerans beer, the remaining 40L kettle-soured with a fantastic wild lactobacillus available only to my home brewing club, and once soured, split into two batches - one dry-hopped upon completion and the other bretted and fruited with wild grapes.

The details of each of these beers, and tasting notes for two of them, can be found below the fold. Its a bit of a read, so you may want to pull yourself a pint before you proceed.

Advent Beer 2015

Way back in September I posted a teaser post on the beer I brewed for my brew clubs annual advent beer exchange. The beer itself is a Bière de Garde based largely on a recipe found in the excellent book American Sour Beers; specifically the Dark Winder Saison I (pg 336). This seemed to be an ideal winter beer - dark & somewhat malty, with rosemary, orange and raisins providing a unique spice character quite different from the classical winter spiced beer. My version differed from the original mainly in that it wasn't soured; rather a house-blend of various Brett's was added for secondary fermentation.

This beer surprised me somewhat - despite 3 months on Brett and oak, there was little funky character in the beer and it remained quite sweet (even though the final gravity was ~1.005). I've held onto a few bottles to see if this would change, but the beer has not picked up much more Brett character, despite an extra 1.5 months in the bottle. Even so, its a good beer, although if I rebrewed it I'd either brew it as a sour, or as a straight Bière de Garde without Brett.

Recipe, Brewing Notes and Tasting Notes below the fold.

Tasting Notes - Well There Gose Christmas

Picture doeen't do it justice; In the
right light the beer is medium-red,
and the head pink..

 A few weeks ago I blogged a recipe of a Christmas-themed Gose that I was brewing - flavoured with hibiscus, orange, cranberry and cinnamon, this was intended to be a unique Christmas beer for my winter enjoyment. So its time for some tasting notes.

I knocked this f***er out of the park. Hell, this may be the best kettle-soured beer I have ever produced.

Appearance: Red. The beer pours with a distinctive red coloured body; not the red of a melanoidin-rich barely based beer, but really really red. Crayon red. The wheat portion of the beer makes itself apparent in the haziness of the beer; combined with the red colour the effect is unexpected and visually pleasing - sadly, my shoddy camera work doesn't do it justice. The head itself is white with tinges of pink. Its highly carbonated, so the head pours thick and fine, and lasts for most of the pint.

Aroma: The cranberries dominate the aroma, with their unique sharp fruit character, along with a notable lactic aroma, shining through. Behind that is the sweet/berry aroma of hibiscus, a slight bready character, and a hint of yeastiness.

Belgian lace lasts right to the end

Flavour: This is where this beer shines. Up front is a bracing lactic sourness. The "tang" of the cranberry works alongside this, creating an overall "sourness" far more complex than what you normally get with a kettle sour, and yet retaining the clean sour profile that characterizes kettle soured beers. The hibiscus really acts to balanced this acidity through providing a sweet note - some sort of unfermentable glycoside, I assume - along with emboldening the fruit character provided by the cranberries. The orange plays a minor background role, giving a subtle orange-zest character noticeable mostly in the aftertaste. It took a number of test batches to dial-in the salt level to a level I like - and its perfect for this beer. The salt is present, but subtle. It acts more to tie the flavours together and to mellow the beer; the taste of salt is present, but mostly as a flinty character rather than an overt saltiness.

The only thing missing is the cinnamon. But given how wonderful the beer turned out, its absence is a blessing rather than a flaw.

Mouthfeel: Complex is the best description I can give. The beer was brewed to have a light body and be highly effervescent - and it is. The low finishing gravity combined with high carbonation and acidity creates a prickly, light mouthfeel on the tongue, especially as the beer enters the palate. But the salt works in opposition, rapidly adding a fuller, more meaty mouthfeel as the effervescence fades. The aftertaste is a mix of hibiscus sweetness/fruitiness, cranberry "tang" and lactic sourness, and fades in a way which leaves you wanting more.

Overall: If it isn't apparent already, this is a damned good beer. My second-best of the year (#1 to be blogged about soon), likely my best kettle-soured beer of all time, and in all honesty, one of the better sour beers that I've made recently. What it lacks in traditional sour-beer complexity is more than made up for by the interplay of the hibiscus, cranberry, acidity and salt. It is eminently drinkable, and yet, complex enough to be enjoyed slowly in front of a Christmas fire. There are four minor tweaks I would make upon re-brewing: 1) drop the cinnamon completely, 2) increase the hibiscus by 20-30%, 3) use the zest of an additional orange (3 instead of 2), and lastly, 4) brew a double, triple, or even quadruple sized batch. Because there's no way any of this beer will be left by Christmas!

Well, There Gose Christmas!

Nearly 2 months ago I blogged a teaser post on the brewing of my 2015 Christmas brew that would be entered into my home brew club's advent event, and given to my beer-loving family and friends.

This post is not about that beer.

Rather, this post is about another winter-holiday themed beer that is both a product of long planning (and fantasizing), plus a bit of last-minute brew-wizardry to make the brew-day happen. Sadly, I have no images of this last-minute brew, as I've recently taken a page from a fellow home-brewers book (hi, Devin!) and begun brewing late at night. Yep, 7 PM - midnight brew "days" do get you around all those irritating day-time things (jobs, family, friends, etc), but make for crappy photo-shooting conditions.

I wish I could claim this recipe as my own, and to some extent it is, but I received a lot of help on this one. The initial motivation for this beer is the table of Gose recipes by Cascade brewing in American Sour Beers; specifically, the all-to-brief mention of the winter gose featuring cinnamon, orange, hibiscus and cranberry. While a gose is a pretty straight-forward sour-ketteled beer, the balance of orange & hibiscus came from a very helpful set of  private messages and public posting of a similar gose recipe by BigPerm over at HomebrewTalk. The remaining balance of cinnamon, cranberry, hops and salt are from my previous brewing experiences with gose and those particular ingredients.

Despite that, there was (of course) a bump in the road. I had planned on souring using Lactobacillus isolated from a bottle of Hottenroth. Unfortunately, the lacto culture got "infected" with yeast (you know you're not a normal brewer when the yeast is the infection), so I was forced to preare a last-minute lacto starter using 1.040 wort @ pH 4.5, a handful of grain, and a "homebrewed" incubator to keep the cultures at 44C. The last-minute starter worked, so the brewday(s) was/were saved.

Additional details and recipe can be found below the fold.

Tasting Notes - Brett'd Sour Opprobrium

Enjoyed on the last
day of summer

Back in July I brewed a kettle-soured Berliner Weisse, which I split into two batches - one fermented straight with German Ale (Wyeast 1007), which was kegged and carbed within 10 days of brew day. The second half was fermented with the same yeast, but then underwent a secondary fermentation for ~2.5 months with a blend of Wyeast & White Lab's B. claussenii and Wyeast's B. lambicus. Those familiar with those brett strains will see that my goal was to add a nice fruit character to the beer, with a hint of funk.

The non-bretted version turned out pretty good - not quite as sour as I was hoping, but it was very quaffable. So what did the brett do to this beer?

Appearance: Its a Berliner - hazy (although not as hazy as the non-bretted version, likely because of its longer ageing), very pale in colour, and pours with a nice, long-lasting head.

Aroma: A tropical fruit character is apparent, as is a bit of lactic acidity. The bread notes of the unbretted portion are very muted - I don't think I'd notice they were present if I didn't know to look for them.

Flavour: The hoped-for fruit character has come through. The mix of bretts produced a nice fruitiness, although a specific fruit character has not been achieved. There's a bit of citrus and some stone fruit. In addition, a bit of leathery/earthy brett funk has emerged, giving this beer an additional interesting edge. Not only has the brett enhanced the flavour profile, but it also seems to have increased the acidity - I suspect this is an apparent change (rather than more actual acid), likely due to a lowering of the maltiness by the activity of the brett. The acidity balances nice with the fruit and funk, making for a wonderfully balanced beer.

Mouthfeel: Crisp, dry and acidic. Very refreshing. After taste is lactic with hints of fruit.

Overall: A huge improvement over the original - more apparent acidity, a more complex flavour profile, and a more pleasing mouthfeel. While the base recipe could use a little tweaking (in particular, a step-mash to get a more fermentable wort, replacement of some gravity with sugar, and a more aggressive Lactobacillus for the sour-ketteling), the addition of brett was a great way to improve on the beer. I've brewed bretted Berliners in the past, and while this one is not the best of them, it remains a very good beer.

Choosing the Right Probiotics for Souring Beer

A more-and-more common practice for quick sour beers is to use probiotic pills as a source of lactobacilli for the souring process. Indeed, the Milk the Funk Wiki has a growing list of alternate sources for these bacteria, including many probiotic capsules. A question that seems to rise quite often on this topic is "can I use probiotic brand X for souring beer". So here is a quick guide on figuring out whether a probiotic will work for souring beer.

In general, probiotic organisms fall into four categories when considering using them for souring:

1. Good choices
2. Probably don't matter
3. Avoid under some circumstances
4. Avoid at all cost

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Good Choices:

Bacteria that represent good choices are those which have the capacity to sour wort, and will do so with a minimal risk of off-flavours. These are solely species belonging to the Lactobacillus genus - i.e. Lactobacillus sp, where sp merely means "any species".  Lactobacillus plantarum and Lactobacillus rhamnosis are two of the more commonly seen probiotic strains, but any probiotic containing bacteria whose name starts with 'Lactobacillus' will work well.

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Probably Don't Matter:

Species which "probably don't matter" are those which are unlikely to grow in wort; either because the homebrewer lacks the ability to lower the oxygen level in the wort to the point where these organisms grow, or because wort isn't nutritionally compatible with these species. The flip side is that if these organisms grow, they should do the same thing as Lactobacillus - i.e. sour the wort while producing minimal off-flavours. So that's why they probably don't matter - they're not likely to do anything, but if they do end up doing something, they will help your wort sour. Included among these are:

1. Bifidobacteria sp. (again, sp means "any species")
2. Streptococcus thermophilus
3. Leuconostoc sp.

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Avoid Under Some Circumstances:

Only one group of organisms fall into this grouping - the Saccharomyces, as in species of yeast from the same genus of yeast that brewing yeast come from. At the time of this post the only Saccharomyces commonly seen in probiotics is Saccharomyces boulardii. Saccharomyces sp. fall into the "avoid under some circumstances" category as they will ferment sugars to form alcohol. You probably should avoid these - they will compete with Lactobacillus for sugars, and thus limit acidification. In addition, if you are planning on heating the wort after souring (to either pasteurizing or boiling temperatures), you will boil off the resulting alcohol leading to a beer with very little sugar left for the subsequent fermentation.

So as a rule you will want to avoid these, although it may be an interesting experiment to see what kind of beer you get if you pitch a Saccharomyces boulardii-containing probiotic mix into your fermenter.

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Avoid At All Cost:

The last group are those you want to keep as far away from your wort, beer and fermenter as possible. These are bacteria which can produce horrid off-flavours and ruin a beer. In this group there are currently three types used in probiotics, but this list may get longer in the future:

1. Clostridium sp. These guys can make butyric acid, which smells and tastes of a mix of parmesan cheese and vomit.
2. Enterococcus faecium. This bacteria can make bioactive amines, which some people are severely allergic to. Moreover, these amines are often quite unpleasant, and are what give shit and corpses (among other things) their unique odours.
3. Bacillus sp. (most often Bacillus ereus, clausii, and pumilus) make diacetyl (butter) and may also make bioactive amines.

Clearly, we don't want t be dumping any of the above guys in our beer!

EDIT/UPDATE: Stefan Wiswedel has done some experiments looking at probiotics containing amylases (which break down starches/dextrans) and protinases (which degrade proteins) along side the usual probiotic bacteria. Turns out using these is a bad idea - it kills the body and flavour of the resulting beer. Stefan has posted additional details in the comment section, below.

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A Simple Rule of Thumb

So that's a lot - but a good rule-of-thumb is to limit yourself to probiotics that contain only Lactobacillus species, which is easy to remember when you're at the store. 

But if your memory is better than mine, than any probiotic with Lactobacillus sp. plus any of Bifidobacteria sp., Streptococcus thermophilus or Leuconostoc sp. will be good as well.

And if the probiotic contains anything but the above 4 groups of organisms, I'd recommend you stay away.

How I Sour Mash...& A Recipe!

Wort, souring in the garage

I get the occasional request to explain how I sour-mash/sour-wort. So you ask, so you shall (eventually) receive!

Along with a description of my method - which is not all that unusual compared to methods others have published - I'm going to add in a few microbiology insights, some information on determining when you want to stop the souring process, and some other random hints & tips.

If you missed it, I also put up a post a few weeks ago about preparing lacto starters - a key thing you will need to do for a good sour mash/wort. Around the same time, 5-blades brewing put out a good post on harvesting wild lacto safely - a method I've used myself. Eureka Brewing also put up a post on optimized "media" for lactobacillus culture. I haven't tried Sam's media recipe, but its sound from a microbiology point-of-view. For a complete picture of the sour-mash/worting method I'd recommend reading this post alongside these other posts.

I've prepared this post alongside a brew-day, so I've include my standard Berliner Weiss recipe at the end. I love this recipe - simple and straight-forward, is great straight-up, but also works as a perfect base for fruited (lemon & cherry are excellent), s (coriander & salt = pseudo-gose), or bretted for a funk & fruit finish.  I am doing a split batch this time around, to make the most of the recipe.

Details, as always, can be found below the fold.

Michael Tonsmeire Drops Some Knowledge

My favourite home-brew channel (Chop & Brew) just posted a video of sour beer guru Michael Tonsmeire discussing the brewing of sour beers. He starts off with the basics (advice to follow if brewing your first beer), but goes into some of the finer details later in the video. So grab your headphones, a homebrew, and retreat to a quiet corner of your home and let the knowledge flow through you...

 

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Edit:

Want the Cole's notes version of the details? Here's two handy tables:

Controlling Funk:

Maximize	Minimize
Add wheat malt	Avoid wheat malt
Perform a ferulic acid rest (42C/1208F for 15-30 minutes)	Avoid low-temperature rests; go straight to Saccharification
Primary ferment with a spicy strain (Belgian, hefeweizen)	Primary ferment with a clean yeast
Use a phenolic Brett (B. lambicus, B. bruxellensis)	No Brett, or a mild brett (B. claussenii)
Sour beer in primary fermenter (autolysis = phenols)	Rack to secondary after fermentation. Optional:  cold crashing/fining/filtering
Bottle condition	Force carbonate

Controlling Acidity:

Maximize	Minimize
High saccharification temperature (158-160F, 70-71C)	Low saccharification temperature (146-148F/63-34C)
Use less attenuative brewers yeast	Pitch highly attenuative brewers yeast
Sour with L. brevis and Pwediococcus	Use Wyeast/White Labs L. delbrueckii, or L. buchneri for souring